‘With great happiness, I declare you husband and wife. You may now kiss your bride.’
Caleb smiled down at Serena, ignoring the surge of delight the officiant’s words had prompted, and curled his arm around her, drawing her in slowly to deliver the gentle kiss that would be appropriate and risk-free. However, the moment his lips met hers and he was struck with her intoxicating scent, all thoughts of slow and steady faded.
Instead, there was hunger and need and those flagrant forces conspired to drive his tongue into the warm cavern of her mouth. He devoured the taste of her, thinking only of staking his claim so completely, of doing what he hadn’t allowed himself to do, to even really think of doing. Serena shuddered against him, but didn’t resist. One of her hands flattened against his chest, the other sliding around his neck and with that tender touch, the flames roaring in his gut raced along his veins, the kiss gaining heat with each second. He angled her head for better access, drawing more of her elemental response from her as he hugged her even closer to his pounding body. Then he heard it, the sound of applause exploding around them, and finding some remaining vestige of control, Caleb eased his mouth from hers.
Keeping hold of her trembling body and avoiding her dazed gaze, he turned to face their cheering guests. But as they walked back down the aisle, showered by thousands of flower petals, behind the smile etched on his face, Caleb’s brain whirred with troubled whisperings. Suddenly he was wondering if this marriage was going to be as manageable as he kept telling himself.
‘It’s time for our first dance, Mrs Morgenthau.’
Serena glanced at the hand that Caleb held out, fear skittering along her veins at the heat that would take hold when her skin brushed against his, when he pulled her against his body and held her close. But Evie was right beside her, watching, and everyone else was watching too, so Serena summoned a smile and, drawing up as many barricades as she could, placed her hand in his, letting him lead her to the centre of the dance floor.
The hand that settled on her back scorched, burning through the thin fabric of her stunning gown, and she fought with all of her might not to melt with instant desire. But that was a battle that she’d been losing nearly all day long.
Serena had started the day a nervous wreck, her stomach cramping as she sat through hair and make-up, antsy with the thoughts of what lay ahead even though she knew it was the right thing. But, in spite of that, more than once she’d wanted to turn and run as she’d waited to begin her walk down the aisle. Had still been thinking about it as she made her way to the altar, but then her eyes had locked on Caleb—seeing him properly for the first time in days—waiting beneath the abundant arch of fragrant white flowers, and her feelings had shifted.
Nerves continued to ripple beneath her skin, but they were threaded with heat, and the longing to run was no longer to run away, buttowardshim. Because in the tailored suit superbly fitted to the tall musculature of his body, and looking more darkly, impossibly handsome than usual under the beam of sunlight, he embodied every dream her head had once been filled with, everything she had once wished would be waiting for her in her future, and remembering how he had held her as she’d cried out the pain and shame that she’d been carrying for years, she’d felt inexorably bonded to him. Serena’s heart had quickened even more as he’d settled his striking eyes on her, watching her as if she was his every dream come true too, and for a tiny second, she had fallen under the spell of the moment, believing that it was real, that in spite of all the hardship she’d been dealt, she had finally found her way to happiness. But that had snapped her out of it, because she knew happiness never lasted. Whenever she’d thought she was approaching a happy and settled place in the past, the bottom always dropped out of her world with more hurt or loss. In that way, her arrangement with Caleb was ideal, because she knew exactly when the end would be and wouldn’t have anything invested emotionally to feel that loss like a physical wound.
Or so she told herself. Yet, since their conversation on the beach, her feelings for Caleb had been evolving.
He’d been so understanding, and so open in return, and for the first time it had really occurred to Serena how he must be struggling with the enormity of what they were doing too. Logistically. Emotionally. He invested so much energy in keeping people at arm’s length, afraid of hurting them the way he’d hurt Charlotte, but he’d hardly hesitated at bringing her into his life and that had to be costing him something.
Hard as she had tried to not think about him, to not watch for his return to the villa, Serena did. Too many times she’d caught herself wondering about the man that he was and the scars that he bore, wanting to know even more. Which was completely illogical, because she’d agreed to give him her hand, not her heart, and yet the thought of him never failed to make her heart beat faster.
But still, the thought of her heart becoming involved filled her with dread. She didn’t want to give someone that degree of power over her, and she was reminding herself of that a lot, and that their relationship wasn’t real. And that she didn’t want it to be.
And that heat building and pulsing at your breastbone—is that not real either?
Pushing that awareness, and the questions it raised, out of her mind, Serena concentrated on keeping her smile in place, keeping her eyes on Caleb, starry and dreamy, as if this was everything she had ever wanted as they progressed through the ceremony, even as she worked to root herself as firmly as she could in reality, plant her feet so deeply she wouldn’t lose herself to the charade again.
But then…that kiss.
Her eyes had widened as the officiant invited them to seal their vows with a kiss, having conveniently overlooked that part of the ceremony, but she had no time to dwell on it as Caleb lowered his head. She’d assumed it would be something brief and sweet. After all, he’d made it clear, with words and actions, that there would be nothing between them. But there had been nothing chaste about what had exploded between them.
The second his mouth had touched hers, heat detonated in her like a firework. Prising her lips apart, his tongue had curled against hers, stroking the inside of her mouth, and she’d been helpless, unable to fight her instinctive response, that hungry neediness that surged from deep within her to see her fist her hand around his neck and hold him close, pleading with her body, her fingers, for him to never, ever stop what he was doing.
But of course, he did. Because he was only acting and so ended the kiss easily, whilst she had felt every single pulse of it in every inch of her body.
Events were something of a haze after that. She remembered Caleb leading her back down the aisle to applause, his hand tight around hers. She remembered the wedding planner stealing them away for photographs and being painfully aware of Caleb’s every touch, and of the panic when each touch penetrated that much deeper, evoking an even deeper quiver of longing. Though she continued to smile and pose, Serena had grown more anxious by the second, fretting that she had tied herself to someone she had little hope of resisting, and no amount of rooting herself in reality would be enough to combat that vital and visceral attraction.
It hadn’t been problematic when she was annoyed by him, but now there was nothing to prevent those feelings from flooding her, and Serena became even more blisteringly aware of that as his body brushed purposely against hers, and her face rested close to the nook of his neck, inhaling that bergamot scent straight off his skin, skin she was close enough to touch. To…
Her thoughts scattered as his fingertips caressed the bare skin of her back, and she felt the bones in her knees threaten to give way. She didn’t know how she was going to get through this. How she would survive the next five minutes, never mind the followingfive years?
They stretched ahead, long and ominous, day after day of longing for the husband she shouldn’t want and couldn’t have. And what about the nights? Sharing the same home, same space as him, teased every day by his scent. It had been hard enough the last few days, even though Caleb had rarely been present, but now with this new fervent desire pulsing in her veins—a beat that felt as if it would never stop, it would be impossible.
‘You’re tense,’ he observed, breath as warm as fire brushing her ear.
‘Sorry,’ she murmured, trying to wipe her mind clear. She was thinking too much about feeling too much, and she needed to stop doing both.
‘Is it your stepmother? I saw the two of you talking. Did she say something to you?’
He tensed, primed to leap to her defence and Serena found herself smiling at that even as she shook her head. ‘It was just a brief conversation. I thanked her for coming and for bringing the twins. She complimented the wedding and the dress and you. I think I’ve actually done something she approves of.’
‘After the way she treated you, it should be her worrying about earning your approval, not the other way around,’ he ground out, his anger on her behalf igniting sparks in his eyes. ‘I still can’t believe how she treated you for all those years. But maybe…maybe in her own mind by being so tough on you she was trying to protect you.’
‘I doubt it,’ Serena retorted sceptically. Just because good intentions had underpinned Caleb’s domineering delivery didn’t mean the same was true of her stepmother. But then she really considered his words and saw the slight possibility in them. She remembered how Marcia had tried to warn her about Lucas; at the time Serena had assumed she was just being Marcia, but maybe she had been trying to protect her. ‘But then again, maybe you’re right,’ she acquiesced. ‘I’ve never really thought of it that way. It was always so uneasy between us that I just assumed everything she did came from a bad place. And, come a certain point, I started to think that I…’
‘Thought what?’ His gaze probed hers. ‘That you deserved it?’
